SUMMER 2010 NEWS FROM CHERIE WHITE

Methodist Seminary, Mexico City

There is much to share on Methodism, Mexico and the Seminary:

1. The Seminario “Dr. Gonzalo Baez Camargo” had its graduation and closing worship service on June 19 and 5 students graduated. At Annual Conferences next week, they will receive full time pastoral appointments, which can be daunting after 3 years of just weekend appointments. Keep these graduates, the regular students, and the new incoming students in your prayers.

2. The Methodist Church of Mexico (autonomous of the United Methodist Church) held its General Conference this past May and new Directors were elected for the two seminaries that the church sponsors. As of August 1, Rev. Roberto Arteaga, a District Superintendent from the Southeast Conference will be our new Director.

3. This coming week the 3 Annual Conferences that we serve will be meeting & electing bishops. Our bishops are not for life, as in the U.S. and can only serve a maximum of 2 quadrenniums (8 years total). There will also be elections in the 3 northern Mexico Annual Conferences, so many changes are expected.

4. Mexico, as a country, is a tragic mess. The struggle to control the drug markets has the drug cartels at each other’s throats, and along with defending themselves from the army and police, deployed by federal government to combat them, leaves an average of 30 or more dead each day. The way the “war” is being carried out is nasty with sadistic treatment of corpses, too gruesome to describe. Also, innocent, civilian bystanders are more and more frequently getting caught in the crossfire and described merely as “collateral damage.”

5. Grass roots, social justice organizations have been brutally hit by state governments which have repressed their movements that try to gain social, economic & ecological justice. Recently, a human rights caravan headed to San Juan Copala in the State of Oaxaca was ambushed and a Mexican woman & a man from Finland were killed, heightening the tension is that area and the state.

6. Mexico is a country where economic and social justice are desperately lacking, which forces people to migrate to places like the U.S. & Canada where they can find work and hopefully a bit more security for their families. Unfortunately, the drug lords often use the migrants for their own ends, which gives a bad name to all. Mexicans are, for the most part, hard working, honest people who want to support their families and would really rather not leave their homeland. Mexico is a rich country, having many important mineral, oil & natural resources, plus is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. Corn, the staple of our diet, was first domesticated in Mexico and we could feed our own population, but the government has preferred to buy subsidized corn from the U.S. than support local farmers. When they can not “make a go” of it, they migrate.

7. These are complex issues, which this letter does not allow me to go into further detail, but daily, we grieve and pray for a Mexico that desperately needs and deserves social and economic justice. As the prophet Amos reminds us, we must make it possible for “justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (5:24). Water, besides cleansing, can also be terribly destructive as those in Nashville know, & now in Mexico, hurricane Alex has caused major devastation & loss of life & property in northern Mexico.

8. Please keep all these issues in your prayers and know that I am deeply grateful for your support of my ministry as a teacher at the Methodist Seminary in Mexico City. I know that the economic crisis has hit the U.S. hard & that recovery is slow, but please don’t forget to send your standard missionary support through your Conference Mission Secretary. Also, the Seminary has 2 Advances through the General Board of Global Ministries which help us enormously:

Baez Camargo Seminary (books for library): Advance # 3020734 (my pet project).

Baez Camargo Seminary Scholarships: Advance # 10528B (all of our students need financial help, so your support here is greatly appreciated).

May God be present in your lives challenging, supporting and guiding you always.

Cherie R. White
e-mail: velwhite@gmail.com

Mailing address:
Apartado 20-392
01001 Mexico, D.F.
Mexico